Netcasts of games to start today

There is good news for those who missed the excitement of Yale’s victory over Harvard last November.

Starting today, a podcast of The Game will be available for free on iTunes. Yale will post an audio version the match, in which the Bulldog football team secured the Ivy League title. The Game, as well as other multimedia selections that Ray Tompkins House intends to post, will supplement the University’s current selection of podcasts.

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“It is a new element in our perpetual quest to make sure people never run out of opportunities to think of or interact with Yale Athletics,” Director of Sports Publicity Steve Conn said.

The athletics podcasts are part of a digital initiative that Yale started over the winter in order to make University-generated materials available globally. Yale has since provided students, faculty, alumni and others with an array of lectures and speeches that have taken place on campus.

“This technology allows us to share the best that Yale has to offer with anyone who has Internet access, anywhere in the world,” said Stephanie Schwartz, associate secretary and director of marketing and trademark licensing.

But while Apple’s system is a key component of the initiative for now, Yale does not want to link its long-term goals to iTunes and the iPod exclusively, so administrators are encouraging the term ‘netcast’ instead of ‘podcast,’ Schwartz said.

The idea for adding athletics to the assortment of Yale-related podcasts originated with employees in the Athletics Department rather than the Office of Public Affairs, which launched the project.

“[The Athletics Department] recognizes the opportunity that podcasting offers to share Yale Athletics information, insight and events with all kinds of fans, including alumni, the media, parents, students and prospective students,” Schwartz said.

Apart from the University’s podcast initiative, the Athletics Department has been testing live online video broadcasts of games on yalebulldogs.com throughout the past year, said Sam Rubin, who works in the Yale Sports Publicity Office. It has also offered live online audio broadcasts of many events. He said the podcast posted today will come from the WELI 960 radio broadcast of Yale’s victory over the Crimson that had been available previously on the Yale Athletics Web site.

Those who listen to the podcast will hear the voice of announcer Ron Vaccaro ’04. Vaccaro said it was easy to provide the Athletics Department with his commentary because he always records himself on MP3s.

Vacarro, who has been covering Yale Football in some capacity since 2000 and now works for NBC, said offering podcasts of Yale athletics is important because iTunes and mediums like it are growing rapidly.

Although the University may not post much beyond The Game and one or two other segments this spring, the Athletics Department hopes that in the future, more content will be available.

“The Athletics Department views podcasting as a tremendous opportunity to offer our alums and fans a way to connect with the teams they are interested in,” Rubin said. “We look forward to continuing to develop this aspect of our multimedia offerings.”